Rassie praises SA ‘A’ for playing with ‘a lot of heart’

IT was the Springboks in all but name at Cape Town Stadium on Wednesday night, and coach Rassie Erasmus expressed his delight at the character shown by the South Africa ‘A’ side in beating the British & Irish Lions 17-13.

While SA A had a number of bright moments – Cheslin Kolbe’s devastating sidestep that set up Lukhanyo Am’s try was similar to the one from the 2019 World Cup final – what was of greater significance to Erasmus was to see the Boks handle the physicality and hits to the body that only a match can provide ahead of next Saturday’s first Test at Cape Town Stadium.

In that regard, the tour match was a valuable exercise. In the backline, Sbu Nkosi, Damian de Allende and Morne Steyn got muchneeded game time, while Trevor Nyakane and Joseph Dweba in the pack were also able to shake off some cobwebs.

But for the combination as a whole, Wednesday night’s encounter proved that the Boks won’t be lacking for anything when the opening Test rolls around.

Erasmus spoke afterwards about the adversity that they faced in recent weeks following the Covid-19 outbreak, which meant that they had to quarantine in hotel rooms and were unable to train – leading to the second Test against Georgia being cancelled.

“We don’t want to run away with emotions and things like this. But Jacques (Nienaber) is our head coach and he’s our defence coach, and he was coaching us virtually for 10 days. And he can join us only in two days’ time,” Erasmus said.

“Felix (Jones), our attack coach, is also coaching us virtually from Johannesburg at this stage. The players were coached online, and we had two training sessions. So, we knew we were going to run out of steam, but sometimes in situations like this, it makes you a little tighter.

“The old cliche, the guys played with a lot of heart. If that’s there, we can fix the technical and tactical things, but yes, we are proud of that. But we know that alone won’t win us the series.

“The match was as we thought it would be. We thought at a stage we would start to get tired because we sat for a week in our hotel rooms and had just two practices. The fact that we had two yellow cards and were down to 13 men, we also battled with that.

“But overall, to concede just 13 points wasn’t too bad. I don’t think it was a brilliant game, but it was a hell of an intense, physical game. And it is something that we needed before a hard Test series.”

Erasmus confirmed that SA A will take on the Bulls at Cape Town Stadium tomorrow as a curtain-raiser to the Lions-Stormers clash later in the evening.

He was hopeful that some of the players who were unavailable for Wednesday, such as captain Siya Kolisi and front-rowers Bongi Mbonambi and Frans Malherbe, would be ready to feature against the Bulls.

Willie le Roux (hamstring) and Jasper Wiese (ankle) are injury concerns, but Erasmus said PieterSteph du Toit should be fit for the first Test after he failed to return in the second half after a head injury assessment.